The investiture as a theater, and its actors

The theatricalization of Spanish politics is reaching the highest peaks at only two weeks for the automatic convening of general elections. With a frankly improvable staging, the actors who could avoid the elections - PSOE and United We can - simulate a negotiation for what they will say, while at the same time poking each other without truce.

The public -represented by journalists, in this case- is crowded in the courtyard as the spectators of a comedy corral waiting for the function to entertain the wait until day 23. A wait that is getting too long. For the actors and for the media, that - in the absence of concrete facts to unlock the investiture of a president - they speculate, applaud, boo, interpret, deduce, theorize, suppose or conjecture.

The authors of the libretto interpreted in view of the Spaniards, simulate that the work represented is titled Negotiating a Government . Although Waiting for an election is better suited to the development of the plot. They act like they negotiate and have even represented a penultimate four-hour scene so that no one says they don't try hard.

Nine actors of the PSOE and United We can look each other in the face and reproach themselves for leaving the meeting exactly as they entered. The difficulty of the actors to appear that they are willing to yield in the negotiation theater led the PSOE to offer United We can control public oversight institutions. A somewhat embarrassing script twist, since the depoliticization of these institutions seemed already a basic consensus demanded by society.

The evolutions of the two parties on the public stage seem inspired by the phrase of the poet Leopoldo María Panero in El desencanto . "Society, rather than by commercial exchange, is governed by the exchange of humiliations." Under the sign of humiliation there is an exchange between two leaders who pretend to be "preferential partners" of a hypothetical government. A socialist leader puts it this way: "We are in a thicket and we are going out with scratches and wounds."

It is impossible to understand the play without taking into account the personality of the main actors: Pedro Sánchez and Pablo Iglesias . The events of recent years - with their corresponding load of dramatic moments - have been shaping two leaderships trained for the clash in the field of the Spanish political left.

Iglesias's tweet with the image of the historic fight between Foreman and Ali boxers, in which the audience shouted "Ali, kill him", left no room for many interpretations. Only a very naive spectator could think that this is a serious and adequate method to negotiate a government. The desire not to be humiliated by the other guide the steps of these two political actors.

In July, Pedro Sánchez said: "The problem is Pablo Iglesias." The leader of United We felt humiliated and still hurts the veto imposed by Sanchez and freely assumed by him to sit on the Council of Ministers to the left of the president. A few days ago, Pablo Iglesias declared: "The problem is Pedro Sánchez, there is something about him that makes it very difficult to understand that he has to share responsibilities or that someone can shade him in the Council of Ministers."

Iglesias, an extraordinary prize at the end of his career, is home to an indisputable contempt for Sánchez and his doctoral thesis. Pedro Sánchez, president of the Government and tanned in the humiliation that his people gave him, is not willing to be a president supervised by Pablo Iglesias. "It has taken me a long time to get here to put up with what things and put a political project at risk," says the socialist leader. Pedro Sanchez resurrected a PSOE wounded to death and Pablo Iglesias is not resigned to disappear from the scene based on humiliations.

When the play is about to reach the end, a resource of classical dramas has appeared on the horizon to solve the plot known as Deux ex machina . The unexpected event, the easy element that sneaks onto the stage to solve the story by surprising the audience. The Deux former investiture theater machine would be Iglesias breaking into the scene to announce that he will support Sanchez's investiture for free, without a coalition government and without a programmatic agreement. Just to give the last answer to the exchange of humiliations.

It would be a very theatrical decision, no doubt, but also a very real nonsense from the point of view of institutional responsibility. Such a movement would not lead to a government, but to a much worse body for political stability than new elections.

The rest of the actors, still being part of the play, have withdrawn from the scene. Pablo Casado and Albert Rivera contemplate the evolutions of the PSOE and United We can from the same place as the spectators. Nor would it be possible to understand how far we have come without taking into account the role and personality of the leader of Citizens.

The former deputy Toni Roldán , who left the party for Rivera's strategic turn, confessed to Pepa Bueno in Hora 25 that in Europe they do not understand very well what is happening in Spain. If there is a social democratic and a liberal party that total 180 seats, an absolute majority, what is the problem for the government? The answer must be sought in the maze where Rivera resides.

The leader of Ciudadanos believes that Pedro Sánchez is not a social democratic leader, but the head of a band composed of communists, populists and independentists. Almost no one understands, but he seems to really believe it. No theater worth.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• Pedro Sanchez
• United We Can
• Pablo Iglesias
• PSOE
• Citizens
• Pablo Casado
• Albert rivera
• General elections

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